In Defense of Our Traditions

Mark Tooley on Denominationalism

Recently, a friend who belongs to the conservative Presbyterian Church in
America accompanied me to a service at my United Methodist local church. The
hierarchy of my denomination is famously liberal, of course. But my suburban
congregation in northern Virginia is conservative and evangelical. After the
usual service of praise songs, traditional hymns, children’s sermon, prayer,
Scripture reading, and sermon, my friend commented that my supposedly Wesleyan
church was indistinguishable from his supposedly Calvinist church.

He was not so much being critical as observant. There was nothing to offend,
and much to inspire, an orthodox Christian at my local church.

Fading Distinctives

But most persons who “church shop” and who are concerned about
theological orthodoxy can attest that denominational distinctions among the
conservative churches in the denominations have faded. (It is the liberal churches
in those denominations that, while sitting very lightly to their church’s
doctrinal heritage, hold very tightly to the distinctives of their denominational
identity.)

Some external differences persist, of course. Some clergy wear robes; others
do not. Some are more structured in their liturgy while others are more “open
to the Spirit.” Some say the ancient Creeds; others do not. But my impression
is that a lot of congregations, like my own, strike compromises, including praise
songs and ancient hymns, organ music and guitars, recitation of church creeds
with personal testimonies, traditional sermons with occasional “skits.”
The trend, surely, at least among Evangelicals in the denominations, is for
an increasingly generic form of worship, preaching, and ministry.

As a liturgical traditionalist, I confess that I cringe when costumed performers
strut into the sanctuary to illustrate the gospel through drama. I prefer a
sermon to a choreographed dialogue, just as I favor Charles Wesley’s hymns,
with their theological complexity and depth, over repetitive ditties with simple
messages whose lyrics do not exceed fifty words.

A recent poll of my church’s membership showed, to my disappointment,
that 70 percent enjoyed the skits. I’m sure the praise songs are equally
popular. Oh, well. Stylistically, they do not appeal to me, but their messages
are scriptural. Besides, the skit-and-praise-song people have to join me in
singing “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” and reciting creeds and
prayers that remain in seventeenth-century English. This sort of Christian compromise
is sometimes trying but is still mostly unobjectionable.

But these compromises have helped create a generic evangelical style of worship
that is nationally recognizable and not necessarily unpleasant, even to the
traditionalist, and this has aroused some concern among those of us who value
our denominational distinctions. And it has helped persuade many that America’s
old denominational structures are destined to fade, and that their distinctive
identities and contributions cannot, and probably should not, be saved.

I recently attended an Assemblies of God church near my parents’ weekend
home in West Virginia. Although tucked away in Appalachia, the congregation
neither rolled on a sawdust floor nor summoned the serpents. Aside from the
multiple raised hands, the service was little different from that of my church
or a hundred others in the suburbs outside Washington, D.C.

Competition & Mainline Failures

This evangelical homogenization can be credited to the success of independent
churches, whose ability to get new members in the last thirty years has persuaded
denominational churches—those that are serious about growth—to adopt
their more free-flowing and generic style. Shorn of traditions that supposedly
will bore or frighten the “unchurched,” these Bible churches stress
exuberant worship, easy to sing modern hymns, musical instruments other than
just an organ or piano, and informal preaching that focuses on a “personal
relationship” with God.

It can also be credited to the implosion of liberal Protestantism. Local churches
serious about vibrant worship or evangelism cannot rely upon liberal denominational
agencies for help. Official teaching and worship materials are deemed dry, uninspirational,
political, and only loosely based upon the Bible. Many local churches have turned
to more evangelistic para-church organizations for alternatives. The popularity
of Promise Keepers, Focus on the Family, Christian radio, and Christian book
stores have all nudged denominational churches to adopt styles and rely upon
resources that are decidedly nondenominational.

Competition has been a third factor (and probably a bigger factor than most
would admit) in the growth of generic evangelical worship. Smart suburban congregations
in mainline denominations realize their competition is, for the most part, not
other mainline congregations that struggle just to retain their numbers. The
independent churches have the evangelistic fervor, multiplicity of programs,
and savvy marketing that gives them the edge in attracting young families.

When my United Methodist congregation loses a family to another church, it
is not typically to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) congregation next door.
It usually loses them to a nondenominational mega-church meeting in a high-school
auditorium while awaiting the completion of their new mega-structure.

The failure of liberal Protestantism to develop successful campus ministries
has also contributed to the trend. College students of the last 25 years looking
for serious Christian camaraderie are far more likely to have found it with
Campus Crusade for Christ, InterVarsity, or the Fellowship of Christian Athletes
than with denominational chaplaincies. These students carry back to their local
church this evangelical ecumenism, or they seek out new churches in this style.

We who are catholic without being Roman Catholic can in many ways embrace
this trend. The new generic evangelical style has bred cooperation and some
uniformity of purpose among Evangelicals and other theologically serious Protestants.
It has underscored the failure of theological liberalism to attain any sustained
relevance, or any real audience outside of seminary lecture halls, and it has
shown how evangelical churches can adopt a style that effectively conveys the
gospel to the culture of the late twentieth century. It has silenced the denominational
pride in which each church’s distinctives—baptizing infants, not
baptizing infants—become reasons for separation.

Recovering Our Losses

And yet there is something lost in this rising tide of evangelical conformity.
Wesleyans, Lutherans, Anglicans, Calvinists, and Baptists have rich histories
and distinctions that should not be consigned to dustbins or museums. Differences
and even disagreements need not impair Christian cooperation, and may, when
conducted in the right spirit, foster greater appreciation for the shared and
essential doctrines that transcend these differences.

Nondenominational churches typically and rightly view the New Testament Church
as their model. But the centuries between the apostles and the 1960s or 1970s
need to be more fully accounted for in the evangelical consciousness. Many bookish
Evangelicals delve into reading the church fathers to fill this void. They should
be encouraged, but realistically, the average suburban churchgoing family is
not going to read the original works of Athanasius or Augustine. And it is safe
to assume that the typical Presbyterian has never read Calvin, just as the typical
Methodist has never read Wesley.

Local denominational churches that are faithful to orthodoxy and faithful
to their traditions have a responsibility to interpret Christian history and
denominational development to their congregations. Worship and Sunday schools
need to go beyond evangelistic appeals and admonitions for virtuous living.
Christian faithfulness demands serious instruction about the nature of salvation,
the Christian doctrine and worldview, the sacraments, liturgy, and the church’s
interaction with society.

In nearly thirty years of Methodist churchgoing I have not heard a bold defense
of Wesleyan beliefs about the availability of salvific grace for all persons
as opposed to the Reformed understanding of predestination. Nor have I ever
heard an explanation of why child baptism is correct, Baptist claims notwithstanding.

There is a belief, common to nearly all American churches of every theological
bent, that pointing to such contrasts is ungracious. Among modern Evangelicals,
this trend can be traced not only to Billy Graham but also as far back as Billy
Sunday and Dwight Moody, who conducted ecumenical crusades that emphasized transdenominational
cooperation. Of course, tremendous good came of their efforts.

Creative Polemics

But of all America’s great revivals, the Second Great Awakening of the
early nineteenth century had the most profound impact upon Christianity. Its
primary evangelists were unapologetically denominational. In their mass camp
meetings they cooperated across church boundaries. But they also engaged in
creative polemics regarding denominational differences. These debates fueled
rather than hampered evangelism and church growth. The memoirs of nineteenth-century
Methodist circuit rider Peter Cartwright, which recall his struggles not only
against the devil but also with rival Baptist and Presbyterian evangelists,
make for fascinating and often hilarious reading.

I suspect that the revivalists of the last century understood better than
1990s Evangelicals that denominational distinctives require important discussions
about imperative spiritual truths rather than just prideful fussing among fellow
Christians. Some denominational differences are differences only of style and
taste, but many touch on the very essentials of the gospel.

The growing cooperation between orthodox Protestants and orthodox Roman Catholics
is perhaps a model for evangelical Protestants reluctant to acknowledge their
disagreements with each other. Both realize that spiritual unity among Christ’s
followers, even when institutional unity is (for now) impossible, remains a
divine commandment and a practical imperative in our secular age.

In a way that would have seemed impossible even twenty years ago, Evangelicals
and Catholics have learned to work, think, and even to worship together without
abandoning their theological distinctions. They recognize, for example, that
brethren faithful to their own traditions are more likely to be reliable allies
in the culture wars, and not only in the culture wars but even in evangelism.
Although they probably do not realize it, most people in my evangelical United
Methodist congregation are closer philosophically to most Catholic bishops than
to most Methodist bishops.

Ancestral Wesleyan Heritage

My own loyalty to United Methodism is based in part on Methodism’s rich
evangelistic and social legacy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Some
of the most noble aspects of Anglo-American democracy were generated, or at
least reinforced, by Wesleyan revivalism and social action—and could,
and should, be reinvigorated by them today. Methodism has founded more hospitals
and schools in the world than any other church but the Roman Catholic Church.
Its emphasis upon catholicity, scriptural holiness, and divine grace has profoundly
shaped the face of the global Body of Christ.

I was reminded of Methodism’s dramatic social impact several years ago
when I attended a maternal family reunion in southwest Virginia. All my cousins
were descendants of a Scots-Irish forebear who settled in the rolling blue grass
about the time of the American Revolution. His wife and the wives of other local
settlers were once kidnapped during an Indian raid. Faithful to their Presbyterian
heritage, these women sang Psalms sung by the Hebrews when captive in Babylon.

A party of armed settlers eventually compelled their release. My ancestors
later conceived a son who strayed from the family’s Calvinism. Both morals
and church affiliation were notoriously loose on the frontier, where established
congregations were often rare. The son eventually succumbed to the evangelistic
appeal of a Methodist circuit rider, probably Francis Asbury himself, who frequented
the region. Asbury was the greatest of the preachers on horseback, became Methodism’s
second bishop, and helped make Methodism America’s largest church body
during the nineteenth century.

That son, after hearkening to the Methodist circuit rider, freed all of his
slaves, outfitted them with provisions for their new lives, and escorted them
to the free territory of Ohio. He later entered the Methodist ministry himself,
as did several of his sons. About 200 of his descendants, who gathered for a
family reunion nearly 200 years later, were nearly all still Methodist, thanks
to his legacy.

In touring the small town that later enveloped that ancestor’s home
site, I saw where his son built his house and, not professing Christ and accepting
baptism until on his deathbed, lived, raised his children and died. His wife
was the granddaughter of a local Revolutionary War veteran, who was himself
won to Methodism by Asbury, a houseguest on several occasions.

Their son, the great-grandson of the Revolutionary War soldier, turned to
faith as a boy during the Civil War, when he prayed for divine healing from
a handicapping ailment. That man, my great-great-grandfather, became a Methodist
stalwart, marrying the daughter of a local Methodist circuit court judge, founding
a bank, supporting prohibition and faithfully voting for William Jennings Bryan
three times.

When in her nineties, his widow was raising money in the 1940s to rebuild
the local Methodist church after a ravaging fire. She and her husband transmitted
their Methodist faith to their son and grandson, who both attended a Methodist
college. The grandson, who was my grandfather, transmitted the faith to me through
his wife, who took me to Methodist Sunday school from nearly my infancy, and
whom I now have the privilege of escorting to my suburban Methodist church.

A Spark Still Alive

Despite the apostasies and political posturings of our modern United Methodist
hierarchy, I find the evangelical spark that converted my ancestor 200 years
ago still alive today in my local church. But a specifically Wesleyan flavor
is often hard to discern. I wonder if the children of my church’s current
members have any particular loyalty to their Methodist heritage, or will scatter
to a myriad of nondenominational outposts.

And I wonder where these now thriving independent mega-churches will be twenty
years from now. Will they continue to thrive, or implode and scatter, or evolve
into new denominations with their own distinctive traditions? I do not criticize
them. God’s Spirit is plainly at work in them. And I do not criticize
people for choosing them over the denominations. Church shopping, or evolving,
is part of my own family legacy. My original Methodist ancestor, who converted
from Presbyterianism, was probably the descendant of Anglicans, who were themselves
the descendants of Catholics. God’s hand, I believe, worked, and works,
through all those churches.

But modern, generic evangelicalism too often lacks theological specificity,
and most of the time lacks a firm heritage that reaches back more than a single
generation. Historic denominational ties give Evangelicals a balance—theological,
cultural, even missiological—sometimes otherwise lacking, and often lacking
in the generic style. Denominations provide an authoritative tradition and help
to root congregations in a broader and deeper identity. They hinder insularity
and remove blind spots. They can encourage individual believers and congregations
to apply their Christian faith beyond obvious personal and local needs. And
the doctrinal differences themselves can force their members into serious theological
reflection.

I plan to remain Methodist. (Whether orthodox Methodists should abandon the
United Methodist Church and create a new and more steadfastly Wesleyan denomination
is a separate question, to which my own answer is an emphatic no.)

I hope others will remain loyal to their traditions and do so seriously. This
mosaic of distinctive churches, with its resulting tensions and debates, helped
create the moral frame of our nation, nurtured countless souls, brought the
gospel to millions, cared for countless people in need, and indeed undergirded
much of Christendom for half a millennium. It can and should survive the current
penchant for skits and praise songs.

“In Defense of Our Traditions” first appeared in the January/February 2000 issue of Touchstone. If you enjoyed this article, you'll find more of the same in every issue.

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